Perspectives on Laundry

I was thinking earlier this week about how to find happiness in the mundane chores in life. Laundry and dishes are the two chores I always dread doing. They’re so tedious and time-consuming and repetitive. I always procrastinate doing them, and then the tasks begin to feel more and more overwhelming.

So I decided to do my self-help ‘What If?’ game…..

~What if I had to wash all the laundry by hand and hang it to dry? A washer and dryer would seem like such a treat.
~What if I had to work to support our family and I couldn’t be home folding laundry and playing with my kids in the middle of the afternoon? I could easily work and pay someone else to do our laundry. But I’d be miserable. This is where I want to be.
~What if I wasn’t able to have children? I would covet the opportunity to fold cute little outfits. It would seem like such an exciting thing.
~What if this was my first time doing this chore? Sadie loves doing dishes and folding laundry. What does she like about it? She loves the feeling of the water on her skin, the slipperiness of the soap, and the glistening of the water.
~What if I wasn’t worried about all the other items on my to-do list or all the other things I wish I was doing?

Perspective is a powerful attitude changer.

I’m blessed with lots of clean, cute clothes to put onto the healthy, strong bodies of my three happy children.

Laundry and dishes are a small price to pay for that blessing.

It’s really not all that bad either. There is a sense of clarity and peace that abounds when the house is in order. It is pleasant to feel like I’m making progress and being productive.

So, that’s what I thought about on Monday as I folded laundry.  Kind of silly, I know.  After my thinking session I decided to get out my camera and take pictures because it just seemed like a fun thing to do.

Here is my process of folding the kids laundry.  I usually save it all up and do it once a week. The folding process takes about an hour. Usually there are several interruptions during that time, though. My washing machine is huge so all the clothes fit in two loads – one for light colored clothes and one for dark.

First I make stacks of shirts and shorts/skirts for each child.

As I’m sorting I throw all the clothes that need to be hung up into a pile on the floor.

I also make a pile of all the pajamas and I pair them up and fold them at the end.

Underwear and socks go in a seperate pile and usually Sadie is given the task of stacking the underwear and pairing up the socks. She loves it!

Not all the socks make it into the sock drawer:

This was what her sock pairing looked like. One out of five had matches. I would have been two for five had she not been wearing one of the two pink socks. I wonder where the three missing socks are?

Sadie’s clothes get put in stacks on a shelf in her closet.

McKays clothes go in the dresser

Except the bottom drawer is for Sadie’s and Jax’s pajamas.

Jax’s clothes go out in the garage. That sounds really sad, huh? We have a dresser out there for him. It wouldn’t fit through the door frame of his room so we just keep it in the garage. I forgot to take a picture.

Usually by about this time McKay is grunting and begging to be held and the kids have pulled out a bunch of toys.

So, we clean up and move on. Thus ends another week’s episode of kids laundry day.